Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[eltodesukane]

Gaps everywhere, to let the wind, cold, snow, dust, sand, salt, water ...

[J.OT13]

Badly designed stations. They look great from afar, but when you see the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 accumulating between the glass panels and stairs, the complicated elevator shafts, the salt accumulation, which wasn't supposed to be since the platforms are supposed to be heated.

Water fountains are still closed for winter. They could have designed simpler stations that were more functional and easier to maintain instead of blowing the budget on flourish.

Hope that Stage 1 taught them important lessons for Stage 2, but I doubt it.

[Kitchissippi]

I think the problem mainly is plain poor maintenance. The stations should have been power-washed properly in early spring. There are bus shelters around the city using the similar materials exposed to much harsher conditions but seem to do OK.

The elevator cages are a bit of a poorly thought out design. There’s so much leaves and debris trapped in them. They should have left a good gap from the floor so that 🞵🞵🞵🞵 can easily be swept or vacuumed out from the outside.

Too bad about the wooden slats in the ceiling peeling, they’re one of my favourite details.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I think the problem mainly is plain poor maintenance. The stations should have been power-washed properly in early spring. There are bus shelters around the city using the similar materials exposed to much harsher conditions but seem to do OK.

The elevator cages are a bit of a poorly thought out design. There’s so much leaves and debris trapped in them. They should have left a good gap from the floor so that 🞵🞵🞵🞵 can easily be swept or vacuumed out from the outside.

Too bad about the wooden slats in the ceiling peeling, they’re one of my favourite details.

Poor maintenance is 100% to blame. The majority of the deficiencies depicted in the photos shared earlier in this thread are easy fixes. I'd fully support a thread to document subpar cleaning/maintenance on Line 1, which could hopefully also be shared with the media. As a regular user, I have lots to share.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Badly designed stations. They look great from afar, but when you see the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 accumulating between the glass panels and stairs, the complicated elevator shafts, the salt accumulation, which wasn't supposed to be since the platforms are supposed to be heated.

Water fountains are still closed for winter. They could have designed simpler stations that were more functional and easier to maintain instead of blowing the budget on flourish.

Hope that Stage 1 taught them important lessons for Stage 2, but I doubt it.

The important lesson for other cities is that Ottawa's approach to building a light metro was dumb. Would have been better off with smaller enclosed stations and high frequency, like REM.

As for Ottawa learning anything from Stage 1, your instincts are probably correct. And let's be clear why this happened. This is a system spec'd out by politicians and bureaucrats who don't take transit and were obsessed with the number of km built rather than building what was best for transit users.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Anyone take the LRT or buses last night after last night’s Canada Day show and fireworks? I was on my bike but from the looks of it, it seemed Pimisi station was a s#!tshow, they only had the east side entrance open. The Booth street bridge was a mess of barricades and people had little idea of where they were being funnelled to. Getting to buses on Albert was equally confusing, it did not seem like an efficient operation. Riding my bike along Scott, the rate of buses going through seemed low.

Having only the east side entrance open was part of the crowd management plan; there were separate queues based on direction of travel. The west entrance was closed to allow for the queue for the westbound buses to be located on the west side of Booth.

https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1543056263252156417/photo/1

[Kitchissippi]

My observation is that while Pimisi station, with its multiple entrances and centre platform, is adequate for handling a steady crowd, it’s an nightmare to control when there’s a deluge.

Bayview is just poorly designed , you have to walk through the entire eastbound platform (which has no additional width) if you enter the Albert street entrance to get to the other platforms.

One huge mistake they made this Canada Day was not only did they move the stage from Parliament Hill to LeBreton, but they also set off the fireworks from somewhere in Bayview which concentrated the crowd even more densely in an area where roads and transit are at a bottleneck. Had the left the fireworks where they normally have them, people would have been better spread out across downtown and on both sides of the river

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The important lesson for other cities is that Ottawa's approach to building a light metro was dumb. Would have been better off with smaller enclosed stations and high frequency, like REM.

As for Ottawa learning anything from Stage 1, your instincts are probably correct. And let's be clear why this happened. This is a system spec'd out by politicians and bureaucrats who don't take transit and were obsessed with the number of km built rather than building what was best for transit users.

I have faith that KEV (building east-west) will have taken lessons from Stage 1 stations and made enough redesigns to make them more maintainable. Though they did keep the elevator shrouds, they look like they are more independent from the elevators in the renderings. They also kept the intricate wood ceilings. Simple boards would likely have been better. Railings also seem to be steel instead of steel with glass walls, which results in all sorts of garbage, dirt and grime between the panels.

As for SNC, well I have no faith whatsoever. At least their stations won't have the elevator shrouds.

Another issue could be labour related. Took them a while to finally get enough staff to maintain the current fleet. Imagine with a fleet three-four times the size.

[ponyboycurtis]

I noticed this at Tunneys yesterday. Seemed to be the only one in the station that was being done but I can't say I went for a full inspection.

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by ponyboycurtis

I noticed this at Tunneys yesterday. Seemed to be the only one in the station that was being done but I can't say I went for a full inspection.

Caternary, are you using this forum in place of actual inspections and sending people out to repair whatever we photograph and document??

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Poor maintenance is 100% to blame. The majority of the deficiencies depicted in the photos shared earlier in this thread are easy fixes. I'd fully support a thread to document subpar cleaning/maintenance on Line 1, which could hopefully also be shared with the media. As a regular user, I have lots to share.

The heavy, heavy, heavy overuse of salt is already causing problems.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by AuxTown

Caternary, are you using this forum in place of actual inspections and sending people out to repair whatever we photograph and document??

I think that someone is. Soon after the pictures showed up in this forum, I noticed a large group of cleaners giving Bayview the once-over.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by AuxTown

Caternary, are you using this forum in place of actual inspections and sending people out to repair whatever we photograph and document??

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I think that someone is. Soon after the pictures showed up in this forum, I noticed a large group of cleaners giving Bayview the once-over.

Or... maybe the saw it here and are afraid of the media getting wind of it. Let's keep those shoddy work pictures flowing.

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I think that someone is. Soon after the pictures showed up in this forum, I noticed a large group of cleaners giving Bayview the once-over.

The stations are supposed to see deep cleaning on a regular basis, a couple of times a year. I've seen a boom lift at Hurdman in the spring to clean the outside of the upper windows. There is a schedule for it.

[ponyboycurtis]

I walked through Tunney's again the other day and saw that every column and post was getting ground down and painted.






Even the benches were getting the treatment.. and not just to the feet either, they were doing spot priming on the bench as well. I have actually noticed this happening to some other benches around town.



This one kind of hurts.. this is not a main column to the station but otherwise holds the doorframe and glass. That's probably 3/16" steel with a hole blown right through it from salt and water.

So I am happy to see the maintenance but holy lord... aren't we a little early in the game for this type of treatment? Especially the benches. Were they not powder coated?

As a side note regarding the noise on the Bailey bridge at Dominion station.

The approach on either side of the bridge is 30km/h and the bridge itself is 20 km/h with a stop sign on both approaches. I had my GPS out and the bus never exceeded 16 km/h on the bridge itself.

I couldn't help but wonder if 20 km/h from Dominion to Churchill would make more sense than starting and stopping which always makes a good amount of noise.

[OTSkyline]

Took the train this weekend from Tunney's to Rideau, hadn't taken it in probably a year.

Train was on time, frequency seemed pretty good (5 minutes?), smooth, reliable ride. Stations were clean and the downtown ones no longer smelled like hell. All in all a great experience and happy to see most of the kinks seemed to be ironed out.

Looking forward to the west extension to open so it can be more useful for me to ride from home to downtown.

[J.OT13]

Great to see some significant maintenance going on. They should strongly consider changing their winter operations however, in order to prevent rather than have to constantly fix everything.

[J.OT13]

So BluesFestpatrons ride the train for free, but they have to use the video chat at ticket machines to get in?

https://ottawabluesfest.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005125047--Ways-To-Get-To-RBC-Bluesfest-

Why is it not just a QR code on the BluesFest ticket? How does that work with thousands using transit? Do they at least keep the gates open at Pimisi when the music stops?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

So BluesFestpatrons ride the train for free, but they have to use the video chat at ticket machines to get in?

https://ottawabluesfest.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005125047--Ways-To-Get-To-RBC-Bluesfest-

Why is it not just a QR code on the BluesFest ticket? How does that work with thousands using transit? Do they at least keep the gates open at Pimisi when the music stops?

I suspect they assume most will be transferring to the O-Train from a bus (where the driver can wave you on) at a fare-paid zone, so there is no need to go through a fare-gate. I suspect at Pimisi they have staff on-site during peak times to open the gate. I do agree that a QR code would make sense though.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

So BluesFestpatrons ride the train for free, but they have to use the video chat at ticket machines to get in?

https://ottawabluesfest.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005125047--Ways-To-Get-To-RBC-Bluesfest-

Why is it not just a QR code on the BluesFest ticket? How does that work with thousands using transit? Do they at least keep the gates open at Pimisi when the music stops?

Yesterday, I was at Parliament station and was walking towards a fare gate with my Apple pay out and ready to tap (I wasn't heading to Bluesfest), but a red-vester standing at the fare gate asked, "Bluesfest?" and tapped his own card to open the gate for me before I could say anything. He did the same for a few groups behind me, at least one of which definitely was heading to Bluesfest but I'm not sure about the others.

Of course, I'm not complaining as I got a free ride, but it seems they've abandoned the "please use the video chat," approach, at least at that station.

As far as fare losses are concerned, I've long said OC Transpo is completely far gone on that front. From fare gates that are "out of service" and left wide open (sometimes for days at a time), to Presto readers on busses constantly not working, to bus operators who wave people through for no reason at all, to the complete absence of fare inspectors on the system (I've been using OC Transpo near daily since ~2009 and have never once encountered a fare inspector), I've long wondered what the state of OC Transpo might be like if they lowered fares to something like $2.50 but actually enforced fare payment more thoroughly. But I digress...